


Concerto for Contrabass in Three Movements

by psychomachia



Category: Nodame Cantabile (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/pseuds/psychomachia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't help feeling restless these days, like there's somewhere she's supposed to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concerto for Contrabass in Three Movements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kumarei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumarei/gifts).



**I. Andante**

At first nothing really changes.

It is weird not seeing Chiaki and Nodame arguing, or Kiyora leading rehearsals, or Kikuchi hitting on all the girls, but it's all right. They have lost a bunch of people, but they've also gained them, which Mine says is the whole point of Rising Star. People come and go, but the orchestra should always exist.

Their new conductor, Matsuda, reminds her of Stresemann. He's a little odd, but brilliant, and he keeps hitting on all the girls in the orchestra. Mine is taking a bet on who will be the first person to punch him at one of their parties. He says most people think it will be her.

Maybe they're right. There's something stirring in her that wants to get out. She can't help feeling restless these days, like there's somewhere she's supposed to be.

Her days are pretty much the same right now. She practices in the morning before classes, goes to Uraken for lunch, and rehearses with Rising Star after class, on the weekends, and whenever they have an emergency rehearsal because Matsuda's decided they still haven't mastered the "beautiful perversity" of Tannhauser yet.

It's a nice routine and she gets to see her friends every day, breathe in music day and night, and be a part of something great. She should be content with what she's achieved.

She's not.

"Sakura!" One of the cellists is hissing over to her and she realizes she's behind a measure.

"Sorry." She turns the page.

Sakura puts her worries aside for now. Surely everything will work out for the best.

**II. Adagio**

Something isn't right.

Sakura keeps messing up in rehearsal. She'll forget to come in when she's supposed to, or she'll play too slow, and it's just like when she first started playing for S-Oke.

Except that this time she's been doing nothing but playing music. There are no outside distractions, she reads sheet music day and night, and her dad's been nothing but supportive ever since the day she yelled at him. It was the bravest thing she had done since she first told him she was going to play the bass and he refused to talk to her for a month.

She feels like she's lost that nerve somehow. She's reverted back to the same girl who sat in the back playing poorly, the one who hunched under the weight of an instrument she couldn't master.

There's something wrong and she doesn't want to put a name on it.

Sakura's just ordered the "Rising Star's Spring Concert" set when Mine plops himself down next to her. He waves his hovering dad aside and leans in close to her.

"Hey, we need to talk." He has his serious face on, and her heart drops a little. It was especially bad today and after rehearsal, she fled to Uraken, not wanting to discuss what went wrong.

It's not the smartest thing to do considering who the diners are, but she wasn't thinking, just acting on blind instinct.

"What is it, Mine?" she forces herself to ask.

"I think you should leave Rising Star."

It's not that she never thought she'd hear anyone saying this, but his bluntness throws her off so completely for a moment she can't even breathe and everything's closing in on her. So it's finally that day. The day someone realizes she wasn't even meant to get as far she did. She never even should have made it to Rising Star (so many of her friends didn't), but somehow she was playing in it before she knew what happened, and Mine was there every step of the way. If he thinks she should leave…

Sakura hasn't cried for a while, but she can feel tears welling up in her eyes. "I know I haven't been at my best. I've just been a little off—"

"No, no, no. It's not because of anything you've done. We've all screwed up in rehearsal and Chiaki never kicked us out. At least not permanently. Matsuda's not going to either. He knows how good you are."

"Then what?"

Mine's looking intently at her and something clicks in her brain. He knows what she feels. It's not surprising that he does. He knows what people need even before they realize it themselves. It's the gift he has that she's never been able to find in anyone else, the one that lets him hold the orchestra together when people come and go so often. He's really the heart of it all.

"You know why I told Kiyora to leave."

She nods. She remembers perfect, cool Kiyora, crying as Mine hugged her, telling her that she needed to leave, to become better than Noriyuki. And Kiyora agreed because she knew he was right.

"She was staying because she thought she had to when we all knew, that just like Chiaki and Nodame, she needed to leave to see how good she could really be."

Sakura's eyes are still red. "But what if I'm not good enough?"

"What did you tell Chiaki when he left?"

"I was going to be in the Vienna Philharmonic and that he should wait for me in Europe."

"Then you already know that you're not going to stick around here. You're just putting it off and I won't let you do that. That's not what Rising Star's about. It's about getting to a place where you know you need more and than finding it."

She can't say anything to that. He's right. She's been listening to other people's music for so long that she's forgotten to listen to her own, and she knows that if she listened to it now, it would be telling her that something hasn't been right for a long time.

They sit there in a more comfortable silence until Mine's dad brings the tray over. Mine gets up to leave, patting her shoulder as he leaves the table.

He's almost out the door when he comes running back, something clutched in his hand. "I almost forgot I got you a present." Mine leaves a brightly wrapped package on the table and walks out, winking at her on the way.

Sakura rips open the paper. Inside, it's a score – Koussevitsky's Concerto For Double Bass and Orchestra. She used to listen to it every day when her father was out, playing the CD loudly that she could pretend she hearing it in person. It's the best piece she's ever heard and she's always dreamed of playing it.

They've never done a solo in Rising Star for the contrabass. Sakura learned when she first started playing that the problem with double bass concertos is that the bass tends to get overpowered by the orchestra if the player isn't good enough.

She wants to be good enough to have her voice carry across everyone else's when she needs it to. Sakura needs to be heard.

She did it before when her father was on the brink of destroying her dream in S-Oke. And now something is saying she has to speak up again.

Sakura opens the cover and scans the first measures of the piece. In her head, she can already hear herself playing it.

It's time to take another leap.

**III. Allegro**

Her father's tearful, hugging her at the airport. He's made her promise to call him at least twenty times when she gets in and Mine's father has to gently pull his fingers away from her coat so Sakura can make her flight.

Mine's wearing a scarf so bright it hurts her eyes and he hugs her, crushing against him. His warmth is so familiar, and a little voice in her head pops up, telling her to stay in Japan, to keep playing with Rising Star and not to try for things she's not absolutely sure she can get.

It's a quiet voice, though, and there are enough loud ones in her life, including her own, telling her to go forward and not have any regrets about her decisions.

"You'll be amazing," Mine whispers in her ear, and pats her on the back. His hands are warm against her coat and she wants to cling a little bit longer, but they're already calling her flight. Her dad sobs again and Mine's dad gives him a manly hug of his own.

Sakura knows she'll never forget that electric shock of blond hair in the distance as she keeps walking towards the plane that will take her away from her home.

Her back feels so empty. Her case was carefully checked in earlier as she clutched her carry-on, having been told that no, your bass does not need a seat of its own. It's been with her so long though it feels like another person who's with her on the trip, someone that's seen her through every step she's taken to get on to an airport with her dad still sobbing somewhere.

She said goodbye to everyone the night before at the party. As parties go, it was a nice one. Only one of the flautists got punched, three violinists ended up passing out on the floor, and somehow, she's got the number of someone named Guillermo should she ever end up in Rome.

For now, she's going to Vienna. Kiyora says she'll meet her there and she thinks that when she gives her the gift Mine asked her to take, someone else will hear that little voice that tells you to come home to the people that love you.

But she's learned you listen to the voice that says because they love you, they'll tell you to go because they know you need to.

It's going to be terrifying, intimidating, and so exhilarating she's been unable to sleep. After she got home last night, she paced up and down the halls, walking through the house she's lived in all her life. It was so strange when her father sold the violins, and now that she's taking the bass too, the last bit of music will be leaving with her.

One day, she knows she will play in the Vienna Philharmonic. It won't be easy to get there – she has to put in at least three years at the Vienna State Opera, you can use one hand to show how many woman play in the orchestra and not need a finger to show how many Japanese musicians do, but she's going to fight with all her heart to get in. She's learned that from Rising Star.

Nodame taught her to keep striving for something that's just a little out of reach, because one day, when you think you'll give up all hope, you'll find you've actually achieved it.

Chiaki taught her that nothing comes as easily as it seems to and that even geniuses can screw up, but if you're smart, you figure out what you did wrong and you work on it until you get it right.

And Mine taught her that sometimes you need a good shove to get the courage to go where you need to go.

Sakura sits down in her seat and looks out the window. She's already imagining the ground below her as she shoots through the sky towards somewhere she's always wanted to go.

She's never been in a plane before, but she's flown more times than she can count. Every time she picks up her bow, she gets wings.

Now she's going to use them to take her as far as she can dream.


End file.
